38/49 Sub-Saharan Africa Countries home to 900 million peoplehave one or more Medical schools; Why are their healthcare systems among the lowest in the world?

ONE OF The MAJOR ProblemS

Brain drain of healthcare professionals

The Solution

Recruit and support a sustainable pool of local healthcare professionals committed to serve in underserved areas.

DESCRIPTION

Access to healthcare continues to be a serious and widespread problem in developing countries especially in the sub-Saharan regions of Africa. There are many factors that contribute to this reality. However, there is one "epidemic" among all that stands out the most: Brain Drain of health care professionals.

For example, most African countries' education systems graduate a fair number of health care professionals good enough to reduce on lack of access problem in the region. Sadly, the professionals who are lucky enough to get a paid job are overworked and underpaid. The ones unable to find paying jobs, join different sectors with better opportunities or leave the country in order to find jobs abroad.

The Irony: On one hand you witness many people suffering and some times dying due to lack of access to trained health professionals; on the other had you see a massive number of trained professionals leaving their countries headed for foreign lands in search for better wages. At Health Access Corps we are here to put an end to this epidemic!

THE GENESIS

THE GENESIS

Health Access Corps (formerly Rides for Lives) started off providing appropriate technologies for healthcare access to the world’s most vulnerable populations in East Africa. Our signature products being The Mobile Hospital and The Village Ambulance.

After serving hundreds of thousands of patients in the field we learned that the biggest problem is neither getting someone to the hospital nor bringing a mobile hospital to them in the village but the lack of access to a doctor in medical facilities. We needed to create a scalable and sustainable solution to solve this problem utilizing local talent; Health Access Corps was born!

OUR FOUNDER STORY

Chris Ategeka was born in a small village in western Uganda along with his siblings and extended family. At a young age, he witnessed both his parents die from HIV/AIDS, and his brother who died in the arms of his extended family in an effort to carry him to the nearest healthcare facility.

Despite these tragedies, Chris connected with an organization in Uganda, called Y.E.S. Uganda, where he was able to receive support, opportunity, and an education. Chris showed reverence for education; a sponsoring family from California took notice and gave Chris funding to attend private school and invited him to live with them. Chris attended UC Berkeley, where he received his Bachelors and Masters in mechanical engineering. Using the knowledge he gained, in combination with his childhood experience of growing up in poverty in Uganda, he created Health Access Corps, a non-profit organization with a vision to create a world where every human being has access healthcare.

I am incredibly excited to announce the launch of Rides For Lives! By shedding our previous identity as CA Bikes, we can fully dedicate ourselves towards our ambitious new mission, which is to save lives and forge healthy communities. By working with local residents and resources we build adaptive, cost-efficient emergency ambulances to bring health-care access to isolated people.

How You Can Help

How You Can Help

The most effective and efficient way to help is to make a donation (it’s tax-deductible!). A direct donation from you will:

Go toward Funding a Doctor's Salary You can also...

Volunteer. Our volunteers are the backbone of Health Access Corps. If you are a physician; you can go serve in country. From marketing to fundraising, our volunteers are hard at work to boost our platform to a global stage, which we can leverage to highlight current problems, and the solutions to fix them.

Spread the word! We understand the power of social media, and you can help spread the word in under a minute by sharing our work on your favorite social media websites!

Host a fundraiser! There are various ways you can host a fundraiser for Health Access Corps. From charitable auctions, to black-tie dinners, you have the power to be a creative life-saver. Coordinate with our staff, and let's have an event that will never be forgotten.